7 Insightful Ways Your Small Business Can Leverage Social Media

70% of Americans use some type of social media. So for you as a small business owner, this means it’s a great way to reach your audience, no matter who they are.

But in small businesses, you often wear multiple hats and are juggling lots of responsibilities at once. This means it’s easy to think that social media isn’t important or that you’re too busy to commit to it.

However, that’s simply not the case. Social media is a great tool for any-sized business, but you need to do it right. Here are 7 ways you can leverage social media to your benefit.

Check them out below!

1. Start By Setting Goals

When it comes to any marketing strategy, it’s crucial that you set goals before you start. This will help you know the direction you want to go and help keep you on track.

Whether you want to grow your followers, gather leads, or increase brand awareness, just to name a few ideas, you should have a target you’re trying to reach.

It’s also important to put a time limit on your goals. This will help you stay motivated as well.

And then if you need to adjust them as you go, that’s totally fine. It’s just important that you have them.

2. Choose Your Channels

Next, it’s important to pick which social media channels you want to use. As you’re starting out, it’s key that you focus your efforts on what will be most effective.

Most of all, don’t try to have a presence on all of the social media networks right from the beginning. That’s a recipe for disaster!

Instead, pick the top one or two platforms and focus your efforts there. Think about your target audience.

What platforms do they use most?

Snapchat, for example, is most popular among teens and Millennials. Facebook has a wide reach including Baby Boomers.

Do some research and see what makes the most sense for you as you’re starting out.

3. Create a Calendar

Now, make a social media calendar. This will make it much easier to stick to your social media goals because you can plan in advance.

In fact, there are lots of tools out there that will publish posts for you! You just have to plan them and select the date and time you want them to go out.

This will be a game changer for a few reasons. First, you’ll be more organized and second, you won’t forget about posting as life gets busy.

3. Define Your Brand Voice

Your social media posts should have a consistent look and feel. They should also sound similar.

So take some time before you start writing to think about how you want to come across. Do you want to be funny? Maybe calm and trustworthy?

Perhaps you want to have a sarcastic tone. No matter what you choose, it’s important that it matches up with your current branding.

But also keep in mind that social media should have a human touch. It shouldn’t sound super formal or corporate. It’s a place where you can be a little bit more laid back.

4. Start Creating Content to Leverage Social Media

It can be tempting to use social media to promote, promote, and promote some more. It’s a perfect way to get your products and services in the face of your target audience, right? Wrong!

If all you do it promote your products, people will unfollow you. In fact, 46% of people unfollow businesses if they publish too many promotional posts.

Of course, you can promote yourself on social media. But you should also look at is as a chance to build relationships with potential customers.

Give them content that’s relevant and valuable. Show them behind the scenes of your company. Offer giveaways and free products.

Doing these things will provide much higher levels of engagement and grow trust between you and your target market.

5. Look Beyond Likes

When it comes to social media engagement, it can be tempting to focus on how many people like your posts. But it’s a mistake to only focus on this number.

There are many other metrics that are more important. One of these is the number of leads generated from your posts. Using Google Analytics, you can see how much of your new leads come from social media.

Also look at the reach, comments, and shares of your posts. These will help you see how engaged your audience is.

Another idea is to pay attention to your organic traffic. Oftentimes, when you run social media ads, you’ll also see an uptick in Google searches for your company.

Check this out during when your next ad runs.

6. Act Based on Data

When it comes to social media, it’s easy to act based on your gut feeling or to follow trends just because they’re trendy.

But there’s a better way: acting based on data.

Social media is great because it gives you exact results. In the past, it was impossible to know how many people saw your billboard, but with digital marketing like social media, we have that data.

You can see how many people viewed a post, clicked on it, and shared it, just to name a few things.

So look at this information to see what types of content perform best for you. This will help you make decisions about the content you post in the future.

7. Commit

The final step in leveraging social media is to commit. Far too often, small businesses set up social media accounts, start using them for a few weeks, and then get busy and never utilize them again.

This is not the right way to do things!

To avoid this, start small. Post only a few times a week so you’re not overwhelmed trying to post every single day.

That way, it’s achievable and doable.

Closing Thoughts

Now that you’ve read through these tips about how to leverage social media, it’s time for you get started. Wherever you’re at in the process, it’s time to commit.

If you have questions or want to know more, contact us today. We’re happy to assist you!